Wisconsin Public Service crews working in Wausau. MWC photo by Mike Leischner
WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — Wisconsin Public Service crews have been on the ground in Wausau since about 4 AM Wednesday, restoring power to nearly 9,000 customers after an early-morning storm.
Spokesperson Matt Cullen says crews have come across extensive damage in the city including downed poles, power lines, and trees that had fallen across lines or WPS equipment. “Our crews have been making good progress throughout the morning and into the afternoon. We expect customers who have had their service impacted by the storm will have their power restored or will have their outage assigned to a crew by mid-afternoon.”
Cullen adds while those crews are working, another crew is watching the forecast for the rest of the day and preparing for the next round of repairs if need be.
“As soon as we start to see the potential for severe weather in our service area [we begin] taking inventory of our materials and our equipment, checking our personnel schedule. So if we do see an impact from that severe weather, our crews are ready and have the tools necessary so they can respond as safely and as quickly as possible,” said Cullen.
Cullen says customers should be prepared for outages this evening by having a severe weather supply kit handy including things like a first aid kit, bottled water, and portable chargers for their cell phones and other important devices. You can also use that cell phone to report an outage to WPS through your data plan by accessing either the WPS mobile app, WPS website, or by calling customer service.
He says by reporting the outage you help crews determine how widespread the incident is “so we can pinpoint just where that outage might be taking place a little bit better.”
By 3:00 PM there were around 3,000 customers without power in the WPS service area. About 2,200 of those customers were in Wausau.
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